Goodbye, Natalie

Yesterday, at 12:01 p.m. my friend Natalie died. She was in the arms of friends, in her house, looking out over her beloved creek. She is gone.
I drove up on Friday to San Francisco to see her. Sometimes in life it feels like the hands of God are pushing you where you need to be, and this is one of those times. I had wanted to go to a blogging conference, so I booked childcare on Friday and scheduled a trip to see Nat on the other end. She had another friend coming, but I said I was coming anyway. In the end I couldn't get into the blogher conference (and I started this blog instead), but since it was all set up I went. I felt like I was supposed to go.
I called her from the road and everything was cool.
When I got there at 1:30 someone I had never met before greeted me before I entered the house. She told me that Nat's doctor had called with the results of her latest scan. The cancer had spread more in her brain, more in her lungs and all through her liver. He told her to stop chemo. She had six weeks to live, or less.
I broke down, then went in.
She was sitting in the sunshine on her porch in a wheelchair, hooked up to oxygen. She was hunched over like my grandmother was when she was 98. She told me she wouldn't be able to eat much longer and she wanted to go to Chez Panisse with me, and to book a house at Stinson Beach the next weekend.
Once the doctor gives up the machines of death kick in. She had no time to sit and digest her death sentence. Within an hour a nurse from hospice was there to tell her how he could help her die. He offered morphine, haldol, ativan and a hospital bed. He offered names, phone numbers, and forms to fill out. He prattled on about insurance, and who would pay how much.
She said she didn't care.
He taught us how to do the morphine syringes. We practiced, and then he left.
All afternoon she entertained, calling people into her bedroom to cry and talk. Not best friends. Just anyone who came in. She was still performing and putting on her show, refusing no one.
Finally they all left. I gave her morphine and she climbed into bed.
It didn't work. I think her head was spinning with the news of her death. But no one talks about that. They just offer drugs.
So we held her hand and talked. We gave her more morphine.
She couldn't sleep unless she was in child's pose. I held her all night like a baby. When she woke up I gave her more drugs. I refilled the syringes. It wasn't enough so I kept upping the doses. She was so uncomfortable and I didn't know what I was doing. Had she been in this much pain all along? Or was it all kicking in because she was admitting the fight was over?